Residential aged care in Australia

Nursing home, aged care home or retirement village

Nursing home is the older term and it is still what most people say. The government now uses residential aged care, or aged care home. They mean the same thing.

A retirement village is different, and the confusion here costs people time. A retirement village is housing. It is governed by state and territory legislation, not the Commonwealth aged care system, and you do not need an aged care assessment to live in one. Someone can live independently in a retirement village for years without receiving any aged care at all.

What an aged care home provides

Accommodation, everyday living support such as meals and laundry, personal care such as help with showering and dressing, and clinical care including nursing.

Homes also operate under care minutes requirements, which set a minimum amount of direct care time per resident per day, including time from a registered nurse. Those requirements feed into the staffing component of the star ratings system, so they are worth asking about directly on a tour.

Who can enter

Permanent residential care requires a comprehensive assessment through the single assessment system. An aged care needs assessor considers the person's health, how they are managing day to day, what support already exists, and whether residential care is appropriate.

Approval does not allocate a place. It establishes eligibility. Finding a home with a vacancy is a separate step, and it is the one families usually underestimate.

See how to get an aged care assessment for the full process and the current waiting stages.

What it costs

Four separate charges, and they work differently from each other.

The basic daily fee is set at 85 per cent of the single basic Age Pension. Clinical care is fully government funded and you are not asked to contribute to it.

Current dollar amounts are on our aged care costs page rather than here, because they are indexed twice a year and we would rather maintain them in one place.

The November 2025 split, and why entry date matters

This is the part most published information gets wrong, and it can change what someone pays by a significant amount.

For people entering permanent care from 1 November 2025, the old means tested care fee was replaced by two separate contributions: a hotelling contribution towards everyday living costs, and a non-clinical care contribution. The non-clinical care contribution stops when the lifetime cap is reached, or after four years of payment, whichever happens first.

People who were already in permanent residential care on 31 October 2025 stayed on the older arrangements, including the means tested care fee and its caps.

Choosing a home

Location matters more than families expect. Regular visits are easier when the home is close, and residents whose family visit often tend to do better.

Beyond that, look at whether the home has genuine experience with the specific needs involved: dementia, cultural or language needs, or palliative care.

Star ratings are useful for building a shortlist and poor for making a final decision. Read the four component ratings rather than the overall number, and pay particular attention to compliance. Analysis of the Non-Compliance Register by Adjunct Professor Rodney Jilek found that 50.6 per cent of the homes on it held four stars and 34.8 per cent held three stars, because a non-compliance finding does not move the rating until formal regulatory action is taken.

See how star ratings work for what each component measures and where the system falls short.

Our questions to ask a provider page covers what to ask on the day.

From approval to moving in

The sequence is assessment, approval, finding a home with a vacancy, reviewing the agreement, and deciding how to pay for accommodation.

Two deadlines matter once someone has entered. There are 28 days from entry to choose between a lump sum, a daily payment or a combination. If a lump sum is chosen, there are six months to pay it, with the full daily payment applying in the meantime.

See RAD or DAP for how those payments work and what changed in November 2025.

Rights, and what to do if something goes wrong

Residents are covered by the Statement of Rights under the Aged Care Act 2024, which replaced the Charter of Aged Care Rights on 1 November 2025.

Concerns can be raised with the provider directly, or with the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission on 1800 951 822. Free independent advocacy is available through OPAN on 1800 700 600.

See complaints and your rights for the process and what the regulator can actually do.

Frequently asked